While local gardeners may lament the cool, soggy weather that’s plagued most of the spring, members of the Dogwood Garden Club have been getting dirt under their fingernails for months already.
They’ve been planting seeds and cultivating them to seedlings, splitting plants and tending dahlia tubers for months in preparation for Saturday’s annual plant sale that runs from 9 a.m. to noon at Coquitlam’s Hillcrest Middle School (2161 Regan Ave.)
The event is the group’s primary fundraiser to support scholarships for local students enrolled in horticulture programs, as well as club activities such as guest speakers and field trips to gardening meccas like Butchart Gardens in Victoria and the Shangria dahlia garden in Mission.
Glynis Karpinsky, the sale’s lead organizer, said the club’s 62 members spend pretty much the entire year getting ready for it — whether it’s just thinking about which plants from their own gardens could be seconded for the fundraiser to nurturing the cuttings and seedlings to potting them for the big day.
“It’s a labour of love,” added Karen Griffiths, the club’s president.
And while it might seem a lot of work, it’s also a way to stay in the gardening game through the winter’s darkness and spring’s uncertainty.
Karpinsky said even as the longer days and brighter sunshine beckons gardeners to the local garden centres to begin stocking up on supplies like soil and fertilizer and eyeing the colourful flats of annuals awaiting liberty from the greenhouses, it’s important not to give in to temptation by jumping into the dirt too soon.
“You see the colours and you want to get started,” she said. “It’s too cold. You have to have the discipline to wait.”
Karpinsky said for her, gardening is a form of artistic expression. But rather than using paints and brushes, she creates a colourful tapestry in her yard of blooms and bushes.
Gardening also takes no small amount of science, she added.
For instance, all the plants available at this year’s sale have been cultivated in Coquitlam soil to ensure there’s no transfer of the Japanese beetle larvae that’s ravaged lawns and gardens in neighbouring communities.
Though the calendar says it’s been spring for more than a month, Karpinsky said Saturday’s sale marks the true start of the season.
“After the sale, everyone goes full tilt.”
Saturday’s plant sale is cash only. Check the Dogwood Garden Club’s website for more information.
